1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a plant operation supporting apparatus and a plant operation supporting method thereof, which includes a display section which displays at least one of an operation procedure screen for displaying an operation procedure defined by components and wiring in a flowchart format, or an operation procedure screen for displaying an operation procedure defined by components and fwiring in a logic chart format, and an execution section which supports a plant operation in accordance with the operation procedure being displayed.
2. Description of the Related Art
In order to operate a plant safely and stably, a distribution control system is used in which an operator always monitors occurrence of an alarm and state transition of processes in plant devices. In recent years, in addiction to the distribution control system, a plant operation supporting apparatus is introduced so that techniques and know-how of an experienced operator as to operations for responding to the alarm are replaced by a computer, thereby to contribute to the improvement of operation efficiency and the load reduction of an operator.
In the plant operation supporting apparatus, as a method of describing the know-how of experienced operators, there exists two kinds of methods, that is, a flowchart format mainly directed to non-steady operation and a logic chart format directed to steady operation.
FIG. 8 is a functional block diagram showing an example of the configuration of a plant operation supporting apparatus of a related art disclosed in JP-A-2004-164150, which shows a mode where the plant operation supporting apparatus is connected as a higher-level apparatus of a distribution type control system.
The operation monitor apparatus 1 of the distribution type control system is connected to a control bus 2. A control apparatus 3 is connected to the control bus 2 to communicate with the operation monitor apparatus 1, and also communicates with devices 51, 52, 53, . . . , 5n of a plant 5 via a field bus 4 to execute control of these devices.
A data communication server 6 is connected to the control bus 2, and a data collection section 61 obtains process data PD from the control apparatus 3 and a database 62 holds the process data PD. The database 62 holds real time data of a predetermined period and historical data which is obtained by processing the real time data into long-term trend information.
The operation monitor apparatus 1 and the data communication server 6 is connected to a general-purpose network 7 represented by Ethernet (trade mark), and communicate with a plant operation supporting apparatus 8 connected to the general-purpose network 7.
The plant operation supporting apparatus 8 obtains the process data PD from the database 62 of the data communication server 6, and outputs control data CD for executing the processing result to the control apparatus 3 via the data communication server 6 and the control bus 2.
In the plant operation supporting apparatus 8, a procedure construction section 81 having a builder function generates a component, which is a process unit, and registers the generated component with an icon, and describes sequence and logic by wiring connection between the components.
A display section 82 displays a working screen used by the builder of the procedure construction section 81 and an operation screen displayed upon execution of the constructed sequence or logic. An execution section 83 executes the sequence or the logic that is confirmed by an operator on the operation screen.
The control data CD from the execution section 83 is notified to the data communication server 6 via the general-purpose network 7, and further notified to the control apparatus 3 via the control bus 2 thereby to execute a predetermined sequence or logic.
The plant operation supporting apparatus 8 shown in FIG. 8 displays an operation screen 84 according to a multi-window function of the display section 82. The operation screen 84 is configured by a flowchart form at screen 84a displaying the entirety of a sequence, a logic chart format screen 84b which is displayed in detail by clicking a monitor unit U1 of a logic chart format described on the flowchart format screen 84a, and a message screen 84c for displaying the progress state of the sequence.
In this manner, the plant operation supporting apparatus of the related art can describe an operation procedure in the flowchart format or the logic chart format. The flowchart and the logic chart can be described on the same sheet and can perform data communication between with each other.
In the flowchart format, the procedure is executed only once according to the wiring order of the components. When an error occurs in executing the component, the process is interrupted on the way thereof. When the process of the component is completed and a control signal flows through the wiring, the next component of the wiring destination is executed.
In the logic chart format, all the components operate during an execution period and so the process is not interrupted on the way thereof. Although the process is operated according to the wiring order, the process is repeatedly operated at every designated execution period. A control signal of “true/false” flows through the wiring between the components to determine whether or not the next component is to be executed.
The functions provided by the plant operation supporting apparatus of the related art have the following problems.
(1) The operations handled by the flowchart format and the logic chart format are ones that use four arithmetic operations or functions having formulas and that can be closed in respective components. Thus, the operation is specialized to scalar operation. In order to perform a complicated operation that has no formula or an operation of a matrix, it is necessary to use a special component for requesting an external interface thereby to obtain a solution by using a package specialized to the operation.
(2) In the flowchart format and the logic chart format, only a control signal for executing the component is transmitted through a wiring connecting between components, and it is necessary to transmit data such as an operation result to the next component by using a special variable. Thus, in a case of dealing with a process in which the operation does not close within a single component, many variables for transferring data are required and so a description sheet becomes complicated.
(3) Among the operations, there are many operations in which a solution cannot be obtained by a single calculation. In this case, generally a method is employed in which a repetitive calculation is performed to obtain an approximate solution. Even if a repetitive calculation having an execution cycle like the logic chart is used, the process requires a long time when the number of the repetitions is large. Further, in a process of a form at in which an operation is executed only once as a principle, such as the flowchart format, it is further difficult to describe the logic for such a kind of the operation.
(4) In the field of a continuous process system such as petroleum or petrochemistry, scalar (one-dimensional) data is enough for data to be dealt. However, in a discrete system such as car manufacturing (for example, optimization of the parameters of the electronic control unit (ECU) of an engine), vector (two-dimensional) data is necessary. Thus, the high functionalization of the operation process is required in order to apply an operation efficiency improvement support package to different industries.